A Vampire Never Forgets
by Nuttyginger
Summary: Angel loses someone close to him and he must find a reason to go on. :O)


An ickle fic that is written from Angels PoV after he loses someone close to him.  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I only like to play with them and they all belong to Joss and David's imagination, oh yeah and the people they belong to!  
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A Vampire Never Forgets.  
  
I'm sitting in a darkened room, nothing new, writing this down. Only God knows why i'm writing this down but i am. Cordelia used to write everything down in a journal incase she forgot anything. I'll never have the chance to forget everything, not that i wouldn't want to, i'm not allowed to.   
  
I walked out of our bedroom two hours ago. A room that now contains the body, but not the soul, of the woman i have loved for over 30 years. Who would have ever thought that a Vampire that has committed so many atrocities could love someone for so long. I loved her with all so much of my being and she gave me everything, after she had anchoured my soul. She wasn't ready to take any chances.  
  
***Wesley and i had just returned from a mission, courtosy of Cordelias visions, to find her sleeping on my sofa. I didn't realise until that moment how much these visions take it out of her. I ad sent Wesley home to patch up his bruises and to get some rest. Wolfram and Hart had hired yet another demon to hunt me down or to realise Angelus back, which ever were easier. I tidied up Cordelias attempts at making her supper and set out to nuke my blood as usual. I sat and waited for the high-oitched ping of the microwave and watched Cordelia sleep. She always did make a good subject. I vamped out and drank most of the blood in one go. It din't taste any different and it didn't smell any different apart form a slight sweet aroma. But i felt the difference as soon as it started to dribble down my throut. My veins ached and screamed for me to stop, but it was oo late the blood was already in my system. I stumbled across to the litchen table in the process knocking over the mug now empty of blood and smashing it on the floor. The falling mug woke Cordelia because i could see her running towards me and i finally gave in an crumpled to the floor. I could feel her stroking my hair, telling me to get up. I tried but i didn't have the strength, energy or the will to get up. That was the last thing i remember as i blanked out in her arms. The rest, up until i can to, i got as Cordelia filled me in but even that was sketchy like she didn't want me to know something.   
  
Someone had poisioned my blood, probably the demon Wolfram and Hart hired. Welsey had tried all sorts of magicks while Cordelia paced around the apartment. Nothing they tried worked so Cordelia phoned Buffy, she had saved me beofre she could do it again right? It was just as well i couldn't speak, or move. I would never had wanted Buffy to be there never mind knowing that i was in that state. I guess i still felt strongly for her even after we had done to each other. I drifted in and out of concienceness and when i came too after I collapsed in Cordelias arms i saw Buffy sitting at the end of my bed, just watching me. I smiled weakly at her and she came and sat beside me and stroked my hair. It felt good to have her touching me again. Wesley interuptted our liitle reunion and i lasped back into unconquiense. The next thing i knew Buffy was slapping my face and sprinkling cold water over my half-naked body.I felt my visage slip on and a plastic straw was trusted undignified into my mouth and someone shouted for me to suck up what ever was in the mug below my chin. I sucked hard and immediately felt the warm blood trickle down my throut. This wasn't day old pigs blood, this was human blood. It was sweet, pure and innocent but brand new.  
  
A few days later i was back to normal, well normal in Vampire terms. Angelus was gone and i was free to live my un-life unaffraid of him. I didn't tell Buffy right away, i didn't think it was best since her mother had just died a few months before hand and i knew Riley had left.***  
  
I smile at my memeories, memories that are all i have now. We both watched as everyone died young except Wesley. He's standing in that room with her body and my two children Clara and James. I'm a father now and i have been for 28 joyful years. Clara qualified as a doctor 2 years ago amd tried endlessly to save her mother but we both knew it was hopeless. Eventually Clara accepted the inevitable and spent an endless 3 months with her, a time far too short for what they both wanted to say.   
  
James had been angry at first that we had all this magick and demon spells yet we couldn't save his mother. He had always been close to his mum. When the doctors had looked at us with grave faces and shook their heads he had refused to accept what they were saying and stormed out of the hospital. He now stood beside his mothers bed holding her hand as she took her final breaths.  
  
Wesley took her death as he took everyone elses death; with composure, grace and with an English manner only Wesley has. Inside his heart is breaking and i know it is jsut like after Faith died, he couldn't save her either. Wesley went looking for James after he ran out of the hospital and talked to him, convincing him to come home. I would never have coped if Wesley wasn't here. I never thought i would say that.  
  
***I look back to the day we got married. It was an amazing night, the moon was full in the sky and everyone i wanted to be there was there. Giles had a new wife and Willow was standing off-side with Xander. They lived without each other for so long out of guilt over Oz and Cordelia but you can't keep true love apart, i know that now. They lived together and died together, in India. 37 years old is too young to die but much younger people died that day in the eartquake, 100,000 more.  
  
For the first time we looked the same age and i was never mistaken for her big brother or even her father. The minister had completed the vows and was saying the words i had been waiting all day to hear. "You may now kiss the bride" I stared into those hazel eyes that i had first fallen in love with and pulled her close into me. Our lips met in a climax of passion and the longing that had kept us apart then brought us back together again.***  
  
Now i have to write her obituary, how do you fit a persons life into such a small space, especially a person as great and did so many good things for people. She was a grandmother, a mother, a wife, a best friend, a work colloque, but most of all she was herself. I don't know how i'm meant to live without her. I can't live without her. My heart has been breaking in two for nearly 3 hours and i don't think it will ever heal.   
  
I have two choices: I can stay and bury the woman i love and listen to people come up to me thinking i'm her son and taking me by the hand, shaking it, telling me how sorry they and how she was a fine woman. What do they know? My second choice is to go outside. I'm still a Vampire, and i haven't seen a sunrise in 33 years it might be kinda pretty. Burning to death isn't the worse way to go, for a Vampire. Death by the cross is much worse, i know. I know she wouldn't want me to die, she wouldn't want to me to give up on all we've worked for but i can't live without her. The kids don't need me anymore, they've grown and married. I can fee...  
  
I guess i've just had my mind made up for me, you see i'm holding my 2 year old grandaughter in my arms. She is the picture of her mother and her grandmother. I don't need to heal, just cope, if not for my sake for hers. I have my memories and their light has to be enough to get me through my cold nights. There are going to be a lot of those so i have to make plenty more. I guess my grandaughter, May, is going to help me do that. You see we take our strength from the others around us and because one person leaves and their strength is gone doesn't mean that you give up hope. When you give up hope you let go of the reason you loved that person so much. I realise this now. Cordelia would never have wanted me to brood, she would have proberly slap me out of it or take me clubbing. In the end she stopped me brooding, she gave me light and showed me that what i had done and what i was doing were totally different things and the past didn't matter. She gave me my future and May is testement to that.  
  
I guess you wondered what i said about Cordelia. There was so much i didn't say, there wasn't enough space and James didn't want me to embarase her memory with tales of her high school days or days before they came along. But those days were what made her into the person i fell in love with.  
  
Cordelia Chase  
Died 23.04.33  
  
A Mother and a Wife  
She will be missed by all.  
There wasn't enough time  
for us in this world so ask   
you to wait for me in the   
next one.  
  
From all you have touched   
and your loving husband,  
  
Angel  
  
  
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Let me know what you think please. 


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